


Correspondence

by OccasionalArtist



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Hurt, Letters, M/M, mention of canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:42:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24228283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionalArtist/pseuds/OccasionalArtist
Summary: After Frodo comes to live with Bilbo, he writes a letter to Balin and The Company to tell of the news, and reminisce.  This being the first draft, in which he perhaps does more reminiscing than he first intended.
Relationships: Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Correspondence

Being the first draft of a letter composed to Balin and The Company of the Lonely Mountain, composed in Bag End, The Shire in spring of 2980:

Hail Balin!

I hope this letter finds you well, and I apologize that it has been so long since my last. Undoubtedly I have missed hearing from all of you in The Mountain. I have had some trouble finding someone capable of carrying messages for such a long way, but I have recently met a fellow named Strider, a ranger who was travelling to Rivendell and promised to see my letter into the right hands.

Today I write to you with momentous news! Momentous, and life altering for certain, but perhaps not entirely wondrous. My Nephew, Frodo Baggins, has come to live in my care at Bag End. I am very glad to have him here, and to have another soul to fill Bag End much the way it was intended. But this comes at the loss of his parents, Drogo and Primula Baggins, my closest cousins. I am very saddened by their passing; they were amongst the few family I had living close by that did not view my small adventure as a matter of scandal. Frodo is saddened as well. ~~Sometimes I see the same grief in his eyes that I have seen in my own.~~

But, when he is not saddened, he is settling in well. We had a grand time cleaning out one of the guest rooms and outfitting it to his liking. He smiled so widely when I let him choose some books from the study to fill the small shelf in his room. It was the first time he smiled like that since coming to live here. ~~I remember thinking I would never smile like that again too.~~ I enjoy trying new recipes for all of Frodo’s favorite foods (see! I am quite amenable to company when it is not 13 dwarfs bent on cleaning out my larder!), and we have also been planting the new spring’s flowers alongside Hamfast Gamgee and his son Samwise. Frodo and Sam seem to be mostly interested in rolling about in the dirt and crushing the flowers at this age, but we managed to plant some Forget-me-Not, Sweet Pea, Zinnia and Lavender. Each of these are flowers that have some meaning for goodbyes, remembrance and peace; it would be similar to giving a gift of obsidian, green aventurine, and aragonite.

Otherwise, Frodo is doing his best to run me into the ground between dashing about Bag End with no consideration for fragile heirlooms, and making all kinds of mischief. I feel far more respect for Glóin than I ever have before for raising Gimili, and that is even without Frodo having the ability to find his way into forges, armories, mines, and other dangerous places where fauntlings or dwarflings should not find themselves. I’ve already had to smooth things over with Farmer Magot over an incident with Frodo, his cousins, and a good many mushrooms which did not belong to them. If you could ply Glóin for advice on handling energetic youngsters, I would be much obliged.

Frodo asks after Gandalf quite frequently. He was quite taken with the old wizard when he visited two years ago and of course showed off his fireworks. He is convinced since Gandalf is a wizard and the two of us friends that I could summon him with a wave of my hand and then ‘poof’ there he would be on the front porch. The way Frodo imagines it reminds me in a way of the arrival of the company, although all of you arrived with far less magical ‘poofs’ and far more falling into the front hallway! But, at any rate, if you happen to see Gandalf before we do, would you mention that we miss him on this side of the world as well? Truth is I haven’t heard of him, not even the barest rumor, since that visit two years ago. I know well that he can take care of himself but that doesn’t stop a Hobbit from worrying! I will give a letter for him to Strider as well, to be left at Rivendell for whenever he might pass through next.

Frodo asks for the story of our adventure quite often as well. He wants to hear about how his Uncle fought a dragon. As if it was not how his Uncle mostly snuck about and hid from a dragon while others did the fighting. Telling it again and again makes me nostalgic for those days, and miss you all very dearly. ~~Balin it makes the grief so fresh. I had thought it tempered by time and distance but it aches like an emptiness inside me. I have lost whole evenings after putting Frodo to bed just staring into the fire.~~ Oh how I wish we had occasion to meet again! Maybe we should make the trek to visit you in The Mountain. Walking all that way would certainly use up some of Frodo’s endless stores of energy, and then all of you could keep him entertained for a time. And how lovely it would be to introduce you all.

~~I wish beyond anything I have ever wished that I could introduce Frodo to Thorin and Fili and Kili. Fili and Kili would think him great fun and enjoy teaching him how to get into even more trouble. And Thorin… you know he loved Fili and Kili so much, loved being their Uncle and having a hand in how they grew. One only had to watch the three of them together to know that Thorin would have made a wonderful father. I can picture it so clearly in my mind’s eye, Thorin and I and Frodo sitting around a hearth while I tell stories and Thorin plays his harp and Frodo laughs. So clearly that sometimes I have looked to my left only to be surprised that no one is there. We talked about it once, you know, what things might be like once we had reclaimed The Mountain, what it might be like to have a home into which we could welcome a young Dwarf or Hobbit. One quiet evening, when it was warm and the stars were bright, and we were hopeful. It’s strange and somehow even more lonely to miss a time which never came to pass.~~

At any rate, in absence of a visit in person, I was wondering if you might be able to send a current drawing of The Company? I did a sketch as soon as I returned to the Shire, and Frodo loves looking at it every chance he gets. But since it was only from my own memory, I worry that I may not have captured every detail as faithfully as I would like. And then I beg, if there are any drawings of Thorin, Fili, and Kili that could be copied, I would dearly love to have them as well. ~~The last image I have in my head is of each of them lying on that horrible battlefield. In doing my own drawing I had to fight so hard to keep their lifeless faces from tainting this memory. More days than I like to admit I lose that fight.~~

That is the end of my requests for you then, except for one more, which is to send me news of how you all fare and what you have been doing in The Mountain as of late! I have included some small gifts with my letter, if you could see that they make their way into the right hands. There will be a new pastry recipe for Bombur, and I had to employ every skill at trickery I learned with you all to pry the secret from my great aunt’s cookbooks. For Bofur are a few images of some of the new toys I have bought for Frodo; I did my best to guess at what the mechanisms might be. Ori expressed some interest in Hobbit fashion, so I there are some sketches of the most fashionable Hobbits at this spring’s harvest dance. If you would not mind, I have included some drawings to place on Thorin, Fili, and Kili’s tombs as well – Zinnia for Fili and Kili, and for Thorin the single blooming tea rose. And finally for all of you, some sheet music for a song that everyone can sing and play together. I hope this last gift will give you all an excuse to gather around a fire together once more.

Yours in eternal friendship and burglary – Bilbo Baggins, Bag End, The Shire

This draft will be discarded in favor of a new version with far less cross-outs, and absolutely no tear stains. It will find itself into a locked drawer in Bilbo’s writing desk, to join Bilbo’s sketch of the company (when Frodo isn’t begging to see it) and a few other important pieces of correspondence. When Balin’s reply arrives, Bilbo will read this draft once more before throwing it away for good. In its place will be added the new letter, a sketch of ten smiling dwarfs – only slightly older and more weathered than Bilbo remembered – an image of Fili and Kili with their arms slung about each other’s shoulders, and one meticulous sketch of King Thorin Oakenshield, drawn only a year before The Company set out for the Shire and copied by Balin’s own hand. 


End file.
